Wow. I have wanted to write about this for a long time, but you did so in a way that leaves me speechless! I'm a nurse who leans crunchy in many ways (but also have witnessed many children saved by modern medicine... and many lost by cancer), and I am incredibly weary of our technocratic society, but this really articulates the tension well. Thanks for taking the time to write and share! I hope your daughter is feeling well.
We are heading home with a feeding tube in several days and it's equal parts exciting and daunting for this new task of bringing home a baby with significant medical needs. We're trying not to get ahead of ourselves with anxiety but it's hard! Prayers are very much appreciated 🤍
I feel like so often this conversation gets reduced to the conversation around vaccines. It’s nice to hear a sane perspective on modern medicine. It is balanced and honest. I hope your baby heals quickly.
This is such a good perspective! I am so thankful for modern medicine (and lots of other modern blessings, too). Two of my children would not have lived beyond a few days old had it not been for amazing, skilled medical care. God gives each of us the grace we need for our own battles.
May God speedily restore health to your little one! 💞
I wouldn’t have survived the births of two of my children without intervention, as it turns out I have the tendency to hemorrhage. I don’t take the gift the Lord offered by having knowledgeable medical professionals available lightly at all!
Laura’s books are our favorites. I often tell my girls, “Ma Ingalls would have loved this!”. Especially when I push buttons to turn on the gas oven, or flip a switch to turn on a heater when it is bitter cold outside. The Long Winter is ingrained in us and we know the book inside and out. I don’t know if 2025 Americans could survive it without electricity. But hopefully we won’t ever need to find out. So thankful also for our modern medicine. It has saved my youngest child, twice.
Deeply loving this. I read it the day before my 22 month old started showing signs of Hand, Foot,Mouth disease.
We live in a yurt as a family of 4 on my in-laws property. We have no water, just lug in from the house. My kids use toilet buckets we disinfect in "the big house" daily. We have to boil water to wash, which is great in winter, but we're rarely needing fire in the cookstove these days. We run enough power for an outdoor freezer and a fridge.
We've also been reading the Little House series with my son, who is almost 4. Even my husband is into it. I joke about being a modern day Ma Ingall's with my "granny hobbies" by the latern light.
But right now, with a sick baby and my other child on the verge of likely getting it, 3 days into fevers and blisters and 100% breastfeeding a 38lb baby...I ain't no Ma Ingalls. I'm just a girl that grew up on a farm for 12 years before moving to suburbia, and now lives in the "country" 10 mins outside of a city. Amazon is bringing me a Vitamin A supplement as I write this. My in-laws Door Dash stuff to the property daily, so we won't starve. And even though I'm on my knees washing days of dishes in plastic bins on the floor because I'm behind, I could literally just go buy paper plates. We're eating a smoked brisket for dinner tonight, smoked on our electric smoker, preserved in our freezer for exactly this.
I somehow never read the Little House books as a kid so I never had an emotional attachment to them. I started reading them aloud to my own kids after so many friends waxing poetic about them and how they wished they lived in simpler times etc. I thought their life sounded pretty boring and, as a big extrovert, I would have gone nuts living alone with my family on a prairie lol. But all that aside, two of my five children were born with profound hearing loss and use cochlear implants. Around the time I was reading the series to my then-3 children, the 2 with hearing loss were diagnosed with a syndrome that meant they'd lose their vision as well. I was never super interested in living like Ma Ingalls but my motherhood reality erased any remaining desire I might have had. I am so thankful to live NOW with all the resources available. My oldest will be going to college in the fall; using her cochlear implants to hear and having done tons of speech therapy to be an oral communicator, and she'll navigate her campus with very few impediments and a host of accessibility tech that will ensure there are few limits on her career choices. She can have a life Mary Ingalls could have barely dreamed about. :)
Wow. I have wanted to write about this for a long time, but you did so in a way that leaves me speechless! I'm a nurse who leans crunchy in many ways (but also have witnessed many children saved by modern medicine... and many lost by cancer), and I am incredibly weary of our technocratic society, but this really articulates the tension well. Thanks for taking the time to write and share! I hope your daughter is feeling well.
She's on the mend-- and thank you so much for serving so many! Nurses are superheroes in my book!
I so resonate with all these thoughts as I sit day after day in the hospital with our son. I'm so grateful for being a mom in this day and age 🤍
How can I pray for you and your son?
We are heading home with a feeding tube in several days and it's equal parts exciting and daunting for this new task of bringing home a baby with significant medical needs. We're trying not to get ahead of ourselves with anxiety but it's hard! Prayers are very much appreciated 🤍
I feel like so often this conversation gets reduced to the conversation around vaccines. It’s nice to hear a sane perspective on modern medicine. It is balanced and honest. I hope your baby heals quickly.
Thank you, friend. She has turned a corner and we are so very grateful!
This needed perspective shift blessed me this morning. Praying for Alice's full and speedy recovery.
This is such a good perspective! I am so thankful for modern medicine (and lots of other modern blessings, too). Two of my children would not have lived beyond a few days old had it not been for amazing, skilled medical care. God gives each of us the grace we need for our own battles.
May God speedily restore health to your little one! 💞
I wouldn’t have survived the births of two of my children without intervention, as it turns out I have the tendency to hemorrhage. I don’t take the gift the Lord offered by having knowledgeable medical professionals available lightly at all!
Laura’s books are our favorites. I often tell my girls, “Ma Ingalls would have loved this!”. Especially when I push buttons to turn on the gas oven, or flip a switch to turn on a heater when it is bitter cold outside. The Long Winter is ingrained in us and we know the book inside and out. I don’t know if 2025 Americans could survive it without electricity. But hopefully we won’t ever need to find out. So thankful also for our modern medicine. It has saved my youngest child, twice.
I pray we never need to find out how hardy we truly are.
This was a lovely read, Heather. I'm very glad Alice is where she needs to be!
Prayers for your little one and so thankful for the knowledge God as given us to be able to treat so many awful diseases. God is good!
Deeply loving this. I read it the day before my 22 month old started showing signs of Hand, Foot,Mouth disease.
We live in a yurt as a family of 4 on my in-laws property. We have no water, just lug in from the house. My kids use toilet buckets we disinfect in "the big house" daily. We have to boil water to wash, which is great in winter, but we're rarely needing fire in the cookstove these days. We run enough power for an outdoor freezer and a fridge.
We've also been reading the Little House series with my son, who is almost 4. Even my husband is into it. I joke about being a modern day Ma Ingall's with my "granny hobbies" by the latern light.
But right now, with a sick baby and my other child on the verge of likely getting it, 3 days into fevers and blisters and 100% breastfeeding a 38lb baby...I ain't no Ma Ingalls. I'm just a girl that grew up on a farm for 12 years before moving to suburbia, and now lives in the "country" 10 mins outside of a city. Amazon is bringing me a Vitamin A supplement as I write this. My in-laws Door Dash stuff to the property daily, so we won't starve. And even though I'm on my knees washing days of dishes in plastic bins on the floor because I'm behind, I could literally just go buy paper plates. We're eating a smoked brisket for dinner tonight, smoked on our electric smoker, preserved in our freezer for exactly this.
I love, love my very "removed from the mainstream" life. Except when I also want to be rescued from the parts that creep in and need intervention!
This is wonderful. Thank you.
Needed to read this! Thank you
Beautifully and thoughtfully written! I agree with the many sentiments you shared.
This entire piece was beautiful! Thank you for writing this. I hope your little one heals quickly! 💛
We are grateful that she appears to be on the mend!
I somehow never read the Little House books as a kid so I never had an emotional attachment to them. I started reading them aloud to my own kids after so many friends waxing poetic about them and how they wished they lived in simpler times etc. I thought their life sounded pretty boring and, as a big extrovert, I would have gone nuts living alone with my family on a prairie lol. But all that aside, two of my five children were born with profound hearing loss and use cochlear implants. Around the time I was reading the series to my then-3 children, the 2 with hearing loss were diagnosed with a syndrome that meant they'd lose their vision as well. I was never super interested in living like Ma Ingalls but my motherhood reality erased any remaining desire I might have had. I am so thankful to live NOW with all the resources available. My oldest will be going to college in the fall; using her cochlear implants to hear and having done tons of speech therapy to be an oral communicator, and she'll navigate her campus with very few impediments and a host of accessibility tech that will ensure there are few limits on her career choices. She can have a life Mary Ingalls could have barely dreamed about. :)